Location: Southwestern Tennessee(3)

 

Commander of the Union:

Ulysses S. Grant was attempting to attack the Mepmhis and Charleston Railroad (3)  

Commanders of the Confederacy: 

Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T Beauregard (following Johnston’s death) were both attempting to recover their recent losses of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson that were lost to the union (3)

 

Summary of the Battle:

Confederate troops attacked the Union while they were off guard on account of the Union's plan to attack, and not having planned to fortify their camps yet(1). Without reinforcements it appeared that the Union would be at lost, but even so the Union managed to pull out a victory even if the Confederates would not admit it, and both sides ended up claiming victory(1). Both the Confederates and the Union took long to recover from the mass amount of causalties, nearly 10,000 on each side, making it one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War at it's time(1). 

 

Consequences and Why it Was Important: 

Beyond the grisly statistics, Americans north and south of the Mason-Dixon line were suddenly confronted with the fact that Shiloh hadn’t been the  battle-to-end-all-battles; there was no crushing victory or victor, only death and carnage on a scale previously unimaginable. The casualty figures at Shiloh were five times greater than its only major predecessor engagement, the Battle of Bull Run, and people were left with the shocking apprehension that more, and perhaps many more, such confrontations were in store before the thing was settled (1,2,3 Conjoined and interpreted by me).